The present invention relates to zoning SANs (Storage Area Networks), and more particularly to a zoning method and device for a plurality of SANs.
A switch constituting a SAN has a zoning function for grouping fibre channel ports (FC ports) of servers and FC ports of storage devices in units of a virtual group called zones in order to limit access between different zones. With this zoning function, it is possible to inhibit an access from one zone to another or vice versa. For example, it is also possible to inhibit an access to a storage device from some group in order to keep data security, or to determine a storage accessible by each OS (Operating System) in order to prevent any damages of a file system. Zoning is performed by using an identifier for each group unit (hereinafter called a zone name) or a WWN (World Wide Name). For Internet Protocol (IP) networks, VLAN (Virtual Local Area Network) techniques, which can set virtual terminal groups independently from physical connection topologies, are known.
There are other known techniques of interconnecting between SANs, distributed at a plurality of sites, by IP networks by converting in one-to-one correspondence between a WWN and a zone name which are identifiers of a network device in a fibre channel environment into a MAC (Media Access Control) and an IP address which are identifiers of a network device in an IP network environment.
According to the above-described prior art techniques, in a network of SANs interconnected by IP networks, virtual groups are set independently on SANs and IP networks. Therefore, it is not possible to set virtual groups of network devices between SANs and IP networks and to provide virtual connection control of network devices between SANs and IP networks.
The above-described prior art techniques do not provide the means for making an IP network inherit the zone information (zone name and WWN) representative of a virtual group. A reception side SAN cannot know the zone having a zone name (or the port having a WWN) to which the information is passed in order to perform proper zoning. Therefore, unless the IP network is uniquely configured for each zoning, the number of ports of a switch is limited so that the number of virtual groups capable of being set among SANs is limited.